Sunday, 12 May 2013

Update - Sometime in the middle of the night I was woken by a phone call from Paypal saying they had reopened my account, and apologising for closing it, so everyone can start donating again. Many thanks to everyone who contacted Paypal over this, and thanks to Paypal's president David Marcus for taking special interest in my case.

Around a month ago I was offered a well-paid job as an analyst at a private security firm that would have required me to stop writing about Syria and related conflicts on the Brown Moses Blog. As sad as I was to stop blogging my financial situation required me to accept the job, and it was an excellent opportunity. However, as I announced I was quitting the blog I was offered a very generous donation that took me some way to having enough money to continue blogging, full-time. So I turned down the job offer, and planned to raise the rest of the money I'd need.

The rest of the money I needed was going to be raised by an Indiegogo campaign, and as part of that I was required by Indiegogo to start a Paypal account for donations. I've heard of Paypal's unreliable service in the past, but assumed Paypal wouldn't have a problem with donations linked to an Indiegogo campaign. Unfortunately for me that appears not to be the case.

With 6 days to go in my fundraising campaign I had raised just over half of the total I had aimed for, and this morning I received a very generous donation of £1000. This seemed to trigger something at Paypal, which limited my account and queried the £1000 donation. Paypal requested various information, which I provided, and I assumed that would clarify any outstanding issues, and my account would have the limit removed.

Then I received this email:

Dear Brown Moses Blog,
For the safety and security of the PayPal network, we often review accounts
for potential risks. After reviewing your account, we have decided to close
it because of security issues.
We are making every effort to minimise any disruption to your business.
If your PayPal account balance is zero, and you have no unresolved buyer
complaints or chargebacks, your account will remain limited.
-----------------------------------
Disbursement options
-----------------------------------
Option 1. If you owe refunds to any of your buyers, you can use the money
in your PayPal account to refund them.
To refund your buyers:
1. Log in to your PayPal account
2. Click "Contact Us" at the bottom of any page.
3. Click "Contact Customer Service."
4. Under "Choose a Topic," select "Sending/Receiving Money."
5. Under "Choose a Subtopic," select "Refund/Cancel a Payment."
6. Click "Continue" and follow the instructions to refund payments.
Option 2. Money in your PayPal account will be held for 180 days. After 180
days, we'll email you information on how to receive your funds.
We regret any inconvenience this may cause.
Yours sincerely,
Alex.K.
PayPal

So all the money I had raised through the Indiegogo campaign is now locked inside that account, which I'll apparently be receiving in six months time, which just happens to be the exact amount of time period I was raising funds for to support my work.

The question now is what can I do to fix this? I've no experience with this sort of thing, so if anyone has any advice or any way to help I'd appreciate if you'd contact me on the details below.

I had the most annoying time trying to get a simple refund from Paypal on an item I never got, after miles of file work I just gave up on getting my money back,I had to or I guess I would be claiming forever, or until I disappeared up my own arsehole!

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We only recently launched our campaign at Indiegogo (about a week or so ago) and we've only had 2 people actually use paypal so far and I noticed there is a 30% rolling reserve! No way. We've already disabled collecting funds with Paypal now. When someone contributes to your campaign via paypal Indiegogo is automatically paid from that amount. Ok Cool. So why didn't Indiegogo stand up for IT's customers and say they won't do business with Paypal unless they stop holding any portion of the funds being raised? These companies are always just looking out for #1. After this campaign is over, we're going to stick with raising funds via our fiscal sponsor only.